The Clutter Fairy Weekly #177
Low-hanging Fruit: Easy Wins to Start or Restart Your Decluttering
The two statements we hear most from people who are struggling with clutter are “I don’t know where to start” and “I don’t know what to do next.” We’ve put together a list of fresh ideas for where to start or restart your decluttering efforts! In episode #177 of The Clutter Fairy Weekly, Gayle Goddard, professional organizer and owner of The Clutter Fairy in Houston, Texas, offers a few simple criteria for assessing your stuff and suggests easy starting places to “thin the herd.”
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The Weekly Tittle is an exercise designed to focus your attention on a specific space, aspect, or challenge of decluttering and organizing your home. We assign a new tittle in each webcast/podcast, then check on your progress the following week.
Harvest Fallen Fruit
In answer to last week’s survey about health and safety hazards, a majority of our respondents reported items piled or stacked on the floors of their home. This week’s assignment is to take action to address your floorage* issue:
- Pick one stack or pile of stuff on the floor of your home—or a portion of one pile.
- If you have the time right now, process the contents of the stack:
- Remove trash or recyclable material.
- Route useful items you’re ready to let go of to your donation box or bag.
- Return items that have a designated storage place elsewhere in your home to their appropriate spots.
- For items you wish to keep that don’t already have a rightful place, choose a storage location.
- If you don’t have time to process the entire stack right now, place it in a box, bin, or bag, clearly label it with a rough list of contents and today’s date, and then schedule an appointment with yourself to process the rest of the stack.
If you’re one of our audience members who don’t have any stuff stacked or piled on the floor, browse this list of “low-hanging fruit” to see where else you might score a quick decluttering win:
- Other people’s stuff
- Out-of-season stuff
- Shipping boxes
- Refrigerator door stuff
- Specialty cookware
- Conference/event swag
- Greeting cards
- Remote controls
- Coffee or tea mugs
- Water bottles
- Dead/questionable batteries
- Pet supplies
- Office supplies
- Sheets and towels
- Cleaning supplies
- Expired food
- Toiletries
- Makeup
- Expired medications
- Expired gift cards
- Glasses with old prescriptions
- Storage containers without matching lids
- Art and craft “found materials”
- School books and notebooks
- Outdated manuals
*floor + storage = floorage
For the full discussion of this week’s tittle, watch the Weekly Tittle segment on YouTube.
Great Tittle this week. I “cut” down entire TREE of low hanging fruit on back porch.
I cleared all the empty boxes, car parts, broken dishes, paper piles and the overwhelming yard/art projects I will never do. I promoted my task off the Tittle list as I then completely re-organized each item to a specific place. Main example:
hanging up all the garden items i.e. shovels, rakes, hoses, etc on the newly bare wall. So visually appealing a space now and so organized as I freely enter or exit through my back door. Floor cleared in an open 10ft by 10ft back porch. YEH! About 6 hours of work.